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Paul Domowitch: Jury still out on Eagles-Cowboys 2007 deal

IT DIDN'T seem like a very smart idea at the time, and it still doesn't to a lot of people. But the Eagles have absolutely no regrets about the 2007 draft-day deal they made with the Cowboys.

Linebacker Stewart Bradley was drafted with a pick the Eagles received from Dallas. (Clem Murray / Staff Photographer)
Linebacker Stewart Bradley was drafted with a pick the Eagles received from Dallas. (Clem Murray / Staff Photographer)Read more

IT DIDN'T seem like a very smart idea at the time, and it still doesn't to a lot of people. But the Eagles have absolutely no regrets about the 2007 draft-day deal they made with the Cowboys.

The Eagles had hoped

University of Miami safety Brandon Meriweather would make it to them at No. 26 in the first round. But when Bill Belichick and the Patriots grabbed him with the 24th pick, the Eagles switched to Plan B. Which was trade down, get some extra picks, and take the hotshot quarterback out of the University of Houston, Kevin Kolb, early in the second round.

The best offer they got came from a team in their own division, the Cowboys. Jerry Jones already had traded away his first-round pick, the 22nd overall, to the Browns for Cleveland's second-round pick and the Browns' No. 1 in '08. But as Purdue linebacker Anthony Spencer continued to go unclaimed, Jones wanted back in the first round.

"I went into the draft thinking offense in the first round," Jones said. "I was looking for some juice with that pick. But it wasn't there on offense as far as I was concerned. But as the first round went along, [Spencer] was the best juice I could see on defense.

"We knew when we traded out [of the first round] that we might not be able to get back in and get him. We talked with several teams. Eventually, as other players got drafted and he stayed on the board, we got close enough to a deal [with the Eagles] that it started to make sense."

The Eagles handed over to Dallas the 26th pick, which it used on Spencer. In return, they got second-, third- and fifth-round picks. They used the second-round pick on Kolb, the third-round pick on a big, athletic linebacker out of the University of Nebraska named Stewart Bradley and the fifth-round pick on Clemson safety C.J. Gaddis.

That deal doesn't look so hot right now, what with Spencer playing a starring role in the Cowboys' dismantling of the Eagles' offense the last 2 weeks. He had three of their eight sacks of Donovan McNabb. He has become the final piece to the Cowboys' outstanding pass-rushing puzzle. With Spencer on one side, DeMarcus Ware on the other and nose tackle Jay Ratliff in the middle, the Cowboys are difficult to handle.

But while the Eagles certainly would have preferred that Spencer turned out to be a first-round bust, they insist the deal worked out very well for them. While the jury still is out on Kolb, who has spent his first three seasons as Donovan McNabb's backup, Bradley became the starting middle linebacker last year and was a rising star before tearing his ACL in training camp in August.

Gattis was a bust who was cut before the season even started. But the fifth-round pick they used on him (No. 159) allowed them to use their own pick in that round (No. 162) on an under-the-radar tight end out of the University of Cincinnati, Brent Celek.

Celek has quickly developed into one of the NFC's better tight ends. He led all the conference's tight ends in yards per catch (12.8) this season and finished third in touchdown catches (eight) and fifth in receptions (76).

"I'll tell you right now, if I could get Bradley and Celek for Spencer, I'd make the trade," said one Eagles executive. "And if Kolb turns out to be a good player, it may go down as one of the greatest trades in the history of the franchise. If you get a starting quarterback, a solid middle linebacker and a Pro Bowl-caliber tight end for a defensive end, that's a helluva deal."

If the Eagles had done the deal with, say, the Dolphins or the 49ers or the Raiders, they wouldn't be getting any heat right now, no matter how well Spencer was playing.

But the fact that he's playing for a team they have to face twice a year, the fact that he's become a difference-maker on a team that just kicked their butts 2 weeks in a row and booted them out of the playoffs, well, that has a way of changing your perspective on things.

The Eagles say the Cowboys would have ended up with Spencer one way or another. They say they weren't the only team that Jones was on the phone with, and they're right. He also was chatting up the Saints, who had the 27th pick, and the 49ers, who owned the 28th. History has shown that what Jerry wants, Jerry usually gets. And he wanted Spencer.

"If they didn't trade with us, they would have traded with someone else around us," the Eagles exec said. "They were talking to quite a few teams. At least we have the benefit of the extra picks.

"Our attitude was that if we really believe we're getting more value back than we're giving, and on that trade I think it's going to prove to be true, then it doesn't really matter [who you trade with]. You just want to get the best value."

If Celek continues to put up big-time pass-catching numbers, if Bradley comes back from his knee injury and picks up where he left off in 2008, it will lessen the sting of every Anthony Spencer sack against the Eagles.

Ultimately, though, our perception of that deal hinges on Kolb. If he replaces McNabb and becomes a very good quarterback, no one will care that the Eagles funneled Spencer to the Cowboys. If he doesn't, every time Spencer tackles an Eagles ballcarrier or sacks their quarterback over the next 5 years, we will wonder what the hell they were thinking 3 years ago.

Send e-mail to pdomo@aol.com